a civil discussion-morphs

[gaz]

from my point of view its very simple,if as i do ,you breed snakes for a living then you simply have to produce "new" things,the reason is that the "start point" ie a wc caught snake decreases in value the more often its bred in captivity,this leaves the professional breeder with two directions to chose from
1:breed vast numbers to make up for the decrease in value
2:breed morphs which then have a "new" value
if snakes pay for everything in your life then those are the two choices,if your money comes from elsewhere then you can afford to be moral about it.
regards gaz

[gaz]

Originally Posted by vikki_john

I don't know about that. The more you know about natural history and physiology etc the more you can understand them. For example when people breed boas they give them a cooling period which does not hppen in the real world but if it works it works.

many localities of boa constrictor do get considerable cooling,Argentine,Mexican,Carribean for example all experience fairly prolonged cooling at different times of the year, redtails also have cool dry periods when they are to be found in rodent burrows at an average temp of 22C,just being on or near the equator does not equate to constant temps and conditions,the microclimates inhabited by each animal have to be considered over and above the gross climate of the area
regards gaz

[ratboy]

I'm getting Deja Vu.... Read most of this somewhere else over the last few days...

[vikki_john]

I see your point about the southern localities but on the equatorial part of the world tempertures only vary from a few degrees through out the year. Surley precipitation and photoperiod play a much bigger role then does temperature in tropical species .

[PSGeckos]

I personally will buy a new morph of gecko if i/we like it, i'm fascinated by the genetics, not having a biology background, i find it a real challenge and an achievement when the light bulb goes on!!

Like Ssthisto, we name all our geckos, and i take time every evening handling, cleaning and feeding them. They all have individual personalities. And there is no favoritism as to the value of the gecko.

[Andy]

Not everyone who breeds boas cools them though. I know people who just put them together and they breed. I am not saying that looking at how they live in the wild is not right I am just saying that I would rather look to how other people have kept them in captivity succesfully.

[gaz]

cbb common boa can be bred without temp cycling,although you will find the results to be better if some temp cycling is used,for other localities/species breeding without temp cycling simply wont work, redtails are routinely bred with NTL's of 68F,and while this might seem too low ,its whats needed to do the job,therefore its reasonable to assume that temps such as this are encountered by snakes in the wild, the Amazon basin gets temps down to 65F at various times and even has hail storms, for insular boas in the carribean the hurricane season has a great bearing on the subject, when i first bred crawl cay boas from wc stock they had to have a three month period of 70F day and night and be sprayed with cold water to get them into breeding condition,hardly "breeding without cycling". As mentioned in the last post guyana/suriname/brazilian redtails spend considerable periods hidden in rodent burrows at 22C which is far below the ambient air temps encountered by humans in the same environment, using humidity as part of a breeding program is sometimes useful,but on its own its very unlikely to be successful, even species such as Emerald tree boas which are very sensitive to temp changes in captivity ,have to be cycled to breed successfully.
in case anyone is wondering i have tried many of these suggestions(no temp cycling/just using humidity etc) over the years and none have worked for any of the animals in question,where as temperature cycling has produced excellent results with many species of south american boid right here with me,last year i had an argument about this with some one right in the middle of my inital temp cycling,so i put all the temps back to normal to see what would happen,result ALL courtship amongst my tree boas and boa constrictors stopped within a couple of hours,and remained at zero until temp cycling was resumed again,and went on to be a successful season for crawl cays/salmon boas/Corallus hortulanus/Corallus ruschenbergeri. Have a read of the "complete boa constrictor" by Vincent Rousso,definately the most up to date and concise book on boas out there,brings together the experiences of most of the top boa breeders around the world and pertinently,their thoughts on temperature cycling.
regards gaz

[Andy]

Originally Posted by gaz

Have a read of the "complete boa constrictor" by Vincent Rousso,definately the most up to date and concise book on boas out there,brings together the experiences of most of the top boa breeders around the world and pertinently,their thoughts on temperature cycling.
regards gaz

Exactly,proves my point I would rather have a read of that, experienced views from the top boa breeders, than get a map out and have a look at the natural environment. I am more interested to see what people who have been there and done that say.

[gaz]

Originally Posted by vikki_john

I see your point about the southern localities but on the equatorial part of the world tempertures only vary from a few degrees through out the year. Surley precipitation and photoperiod play a much bigger role then does temperature in tropical species .

if we are going to play the "constant temperature at the equator card" then we should realise that there is also a constant photoperiod at the equator too! not being sarcy,just could'nt resist. sorry
regards gaz

[gaz]

Originally Posted by Andy

Exactly,proves my point I would rather have a read of that, experienced views from the top boa breeders, than get a map out and have a look at the natural environment. I am more interested to see what people who have been there and done that say.

although getting to grips with the natural environment of any species is always the first step involved in the first breeding of a species,its only once you have cbb animals that you can begin to manipulate things to make life easier for yourself,and then only with some species,some remaim imprinted for many generations of captive breeding,for instance my F3 crawl cays are still imprinted as lizard feeders as neonates
regards gaz